


there's a heart that must be free

by myriddin



Series: ASoIaF Mulan AU [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7225549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriddin/pseuds/myriddin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Mulan AU for Jon/Sansa.</p><p>Background Pairings: Benjen/Dacey, Robb/Mya (implied), Gendry/Arya (implied)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To make this work, we need Ned and Cat’s family to be out of the spotlight enough for everyone and their brother to not immediately know the general ages and faces of the Stark kids, so…suppose a different ancient First Men house had managed to defeat the Starks and reign supreme over the North.

Sansa Stark’s childhood was a happy one, raised in quiet contentment in a modest keep with loving parents who loved one another in return. Rhaegar Targaryen ruled peacefully from the Iron Throne, House Frost held the North with the firm, fair hands they were known for.

The Starks were House Frost’s most powerful bannermen, the strength and size of Winterfell only dwarfed by the massive castle of Frostfall, towering tall and daunting above the cliffs of Cape Kraken. Though Sansa’s father was a son of that powerful house, he was only a second son, so unlike his older brother in temperament and personality it was a blessing when Eddard saved the life of Lord Frost during the Greyjoy Rebellion and was granted a keep of his own in return. Wolf’s Point kept guard over the Stony Shore, far enough from Winterfell to give all involved relief from the fracas of fraternal competition.

Her parents’ marriage was a love match, a defiance of tradition and duty that extended down to their children. With the keep’s proximity to the fishing villages so often the subject of Ironborn raids, Sansa had started learning to seat a horse and hold a sword nearly from the time she began walking. But unlike Arya, Sansa still obediently learned and excelled at the lady’s education her mother sought to impart on her, leaving Sansa with much more in common with Dacey Mormont than wild little Arya.

But Arya was her first thought when Aegon Blackfyre and the Golden Company landed in the Stormlands and the conscription order came down for every household, noble and lowborn alike, to produce an able body for the army. Bran, barely twelve years old, and her father, left lame in one leg after suffering injury during the Rebellion, were a close second to her mind, a mind already made up before she’d left the solar where her father had read the royal letter aloud.

It was almost too easy to implement her plan with the entirety of the keep in a flustered frenzy over the royal summons. While her mother plead with her father to raven Uncle Brandon and have Uncle Benjen sent in his place, Sansa was saying her farewells to her siblings under the guise of tucking them in for the night- even Arya, fourteen and flowered, hardly in need of coddling. Her little sister eyed her suspiciously throughout the entire happening, but grudgingly accepted Sansa’s attentions. A lump rose up in Sansa’s throat as she pressed kisses to the brows of her siblings and packmates, but she swallowed back her tears each time behind a tremulous smile she let fall with each door she closed behind her.

While ravens flew between Wolf’s Point, Bear Island, and Deepwood Motte, Sansa was ghosting around the keep with the invisibility and ease of one who knew every crook and cranny like the back of their hand, making her way to the larder and the armory. Within a few hours, her saddlebags were packed, a note had been left for her parents in her chambers, and Sansa was creeping her way down to the barracks.

A keep the size of Wolf’s Point was only capable of garrisoning twenty men, only eight of which were cavalry. It would takes days for the levies to be raised from the farms and holdfasts surrounding the keep, giving her time and cover to get away, but she would need a little help to get to that point.

Jory Cassel, Captain of the Guard, reacted much the way she thought he would, incredulous and immediately denying of her requests. “You’ve gone mad, my lady, if you think I can allow you to do this.”

“I’m not looking for permission, Jory. I’m looking for you to help me save my father’s life.”

Jory stared at her, solemn and searching for a long, long moment, and eventually resigned himself to being her accomplice. “Pick the dagger back up, Jory,” she softly instructed, indicating the hidden blade he’d drawn on her when she startled him from his sleep, and pulled her long plait of her hair over her shoulder.

She rode out in ringmail and boiled leather, hair cropped to her nape and half-helm pulled down to shield her brow and eyes. It was hardly surprising when she was met on the road two days later by her Uncle Benjen and his wife, Dacey, an assembly of Mormont soldiers at their back. She had gotten Jory to promise not to give her away to her parents, but her uncles were still free game.

Uncle Benjen was frank and to the point, leveling her a look that was half-amused, half-proud. Still, he kept her cover in front of Lady Dacey and her men, calling her “lad” and “pup” the way he would her brothers. “You’re skilled with that sword, pup, but you’re untested. You haven’t seen real battle yet.”

Her blood heated with temper, Sansa nearly retorted that Benjen hadn’t seen battle either, but then she remembered her uncle had spent the Rebellion defending the North’s western coast against reaver attacks. Instead, she bit her tongue as Benjen continued.

“I’m sending you south- Harrenhal. Ser Arthur Dayne is camped there. Your cousin Jon is being sent to squire for him, I’ve already ravened to have you do the same.”

Stunned beyond belief at the thought of fighting under the infamous Sword of the Morning, Sansa nearly missed the reference to Jon Frost, her cousin through her Aunt Lyanna’s marriage to Torrhen Frost, heir to Frostfall. Despite their blood relation, she was even less familiar with Jon than she was with Uncle Brandon’s sons (and that relationship was quite distant). Unless he was extremely dedicated to studying his future bannermen, Jon was unlikely to realize that “Brandon Stark” was only meant to be twelve.

Jon was a solemn sort of fellow, prone to brooding, taciturn silences, and his resemblance to her father in character and look endeared him to Sansa instantly. They made quick friends on the ride down to Harrenhal and added two more to their group after arriving. Robb Arryn and Gendry Baratheon were two of the near two dozen squires and pages serving Ser Arthur. Both were kin- Robb’s mother was her mother’s sister, Lysa, and Gendry’s was a Frost (Frosts and Starks had been intermarrying for so many generations no one was certain from whom the look of wolf blood had originate).

The four of them drifted together during days and days of constant training and drilling. They were good men, Robb with his charisma and jovial humor, Gendry with his good heart and steadfast loyalty, the type of men Sansa could trust with her secret when a mace delivered a harsh blow to her head at BItterbridge.

“Should have suspected,” Robb quipped after the boys had sat her down to examine her injuries. “No man could be quite as stubborn as you, cousin.”

“At least you’ve a title to call her that you won’t mix up,” Gendry grumbled. “What if I slip and say ‘my lady’?”

“Just say stick with Stark, Gendry,” Jon quietly concluded, tugged Sansa’s undertunic back down from where he’d been checking the bruises on her back, caused by the fall she’d taken after being knocked down. “Or ‘friend’ if you’re feeling sentimental.” He paused for a moment and then thoughtfully regarded the other men. “Did you two truly not realize?”

Sansa blinked, turning her aching head as best she could to regard Jon curiously. “How did you know?” The growth of her breasts had always been stunted by her tendency to wrap her chest and the swell of her hips was easily hidden beneath heavy leather of the armor and tunics she wore.

Jon was gentle as he smoothed down the linen of her undertunic, tucking the edges back beneath the band of her breeches to keep the harsh leather of her belt from digging into her skin. “I’ll be Warden of the North someday, coz. It’d be irresponsible of me not to know how old the children of the man who saved my father’s life are.”

It seemed she had underestimated how dedicated he was to those particular studies.

Later, when the pair of them had some semblance of privacy, Jon gently squeezed her uninjured shoulder and whispered softly. “Have a little more care, Sansa. I don’t fancy the idea of going home without you.”

+++

Sansa had had the fortune of having a father that gently but firmly dissuaded any notion of war being glorious, of war being a game. War was not something out of a song- it was blood and violence and death. Sansa Stark the girl died there on the battleground, and there Sansa Stark the woman was born, forged by blood and steel.

With so many others requiring Ser Arthur’s attention, it was near impossible to ever receive The Sword of the Morning’s personal regard. Until a day came, five months after leaving Wolf’s Point, when their forces clashed with Jon Connington’s men near the ruins of Summerhall and she saved Ser Arthur from nearly being cleaved in half by Franklyn Flowers. She received a deep wound to the shoulder in return, but more importantly, she had Ser Arthur’s attention, when he raised Dawn over her dazed, bleeding self and granted her knighthood.

Once again, her friends guarded her privacy, boxing her and the maester in a human wall of stubborn fortitude as her wounds were treated, and Robb’s charm combined with Gendry’s gold saw that her identity was kept safe between the six of them. As she healed, quickly and surely, her friends kept her company in shifts, Jon more frequently of all. With quiet time away from the chaos of battle, she came to appreciate him all the more.

“They won’t want to call me ‘Ser’ if they know the truth,” Sansa told him regretfully one day.

“Then make a new title for yourself,” Jon replied with that soft smile she’d come to think of as hers. “How about ‘Serah?’”

Six months of fighting, nine since she had left home, Aegon the Pretender fell to Crown Prince Aegon’s blade, and the war was finally over. She exchanged heartfelt goodbyes with her boys, waved off japing proposals of marriage from Gendry and Robb (Robb was sweet on a bastard girl back home in the Vale, and she thought Gendry and Arya would get along brilliantly), and began the long journey north with Jon at her side.

(Serah) Sansa let down her now shoulder-length curls when they neared Riverrun, entertaining her Uncle Edmure with the tale of all she’d managed as they sat down to dinner. Realizing her uncle’s penchant for gossip after a few horns of ale or wine, Sansa wouldn’t be surprised if the story of her exploits was known to just about everyone below the Neck before long. She had broken no law after all, the only danger in having her identity exposed was being sent home prematurely.

Weeks later, she returned home with a knighthood and stories to tell to her proud but scolding father, her mother’s tears, Arya’s envy, and her brothers’ awe. She was just getting settled back in old routines when a rider, garbed in the grey and black of House Frost, came to the gate bearing a great ironwood shield painted with a red direwolf on a snow-white, the idea of a personal sigil she and Jon had half-seriously discussed one of those afternoons in her tent, along with an invitation to visit Frostfall. Sansa accepted immediately.

Walking the ramparts of Frostfall with Jon and admiring the waves of the Summer Sea crashing against the cliffs below them, Jon’s soft, shy request to seek her hand filled her with a joy Sansa couldn’t quite remember ever experiencing. As she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew his mouth down to hers, she tasted on his lips the salt of the sea and the quiet, steady warmth of his love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Jon is jealous of Sansa's closeness to Ser Arthur.

He and Sansa grew closer as she healed from the wound that earned her knighthood, but it was difficult to forget her noble injury had been earned obtained in defense of Arthur Dayne when Sansa’s gaze eagerly followed the Sword of the Morning with stars in her eyes. 

Even as he burned with jealousy every time the pair walked together, wrapped up in conversation, or Ser Arthur paid Sansa extra attention during training, still he couldn’t quite summon the courage to confess his feelings to Sansa, and instead suffered in silence from every beautiful smile flashed in Arthur’s direction. 

Months later, after Sansa had agreed to let him court her, a testing question of whether Sansa would accept the Dayne’s offer to visit the capitol was met with an amused smile and a soft, “Oh, Jon,” as she laid a head on his shoulder and simply stated, “A mentor and a friend does not a lover make, my love”

“Arthur Dayne is not the man who knew who I was all along and never treated me differently for it, not the man who told me stories and japes to lift my spirits when I was confined to a bed for weeks on end. Arthur Dayne is not the man who looks at me as if I was his entire world. _You_ love me, Jon, not him. And I love for it in return.” 

Well, then. Jon couldn’t argue with that.


End file.
